Crafters are constantly trying to think of ideas to make money by selling their handmade wares. Luckily selling crafts can be easy to do. Delighting customers can be even easier. If you’re an Etsy seller who is interested in learning how to give your customers an insane level of customer satisfaction.
Now we have the list of places you can sell your crafts, both online and offline for maximum profits.
The Ideas To Make Money By Selling Your Crafts:
Ideas To Make Money By Selling Online
Open a Shopify Store
If you are serious about making a living by selling crafts online, then Shopify is the best investment that you could make for your business.
Investing in a Shopify store and creating an incredible website shows that you are willing to commit to your business, which adds another level of proof to your customer that they can trust you and should buy from you.
This is especially true if you have high-quality images of your products and a 100% satisfaction guaranteed icon on your site.
>> Click here to see how to Start a Craft Business & open your Store
Ensure that you have disclaimers, T’s & C’s, shop policies, a contact form, information about you and an easy way to reach you on social media.
Sell your products on eBay
By selling through eBay, there’s no waiting to know whether or not your merchandise will sell as you’ll know within a week’s time. However, the people buying off of this site are looking for bargains so you might not always get what you want from the product you’re selling.
Open an Etsy Store
There are low start-up costs, and their online support is very appealing to many people. However, to be successful when selling on Etsy, your product needs to be unique. Your keywords need to be amazing. You MUST include an image suitable for Facebook, suitable for Pinterest and appropriate for Etsy.
Related: 15 PreDesigned Pinterest Templates For Canva That’ll Skyrocket Your Shares
There is a lot of competition on this site so you may not always be able to sell your merchandise.
Start A Folksy Store (UK)
Similar to Etsy, there are low start-up costs. If you want to be successful on Folksy, the same information from Etsy applies. Available to residents of the UK only, which means there’s less competition for UK sellers.
> How To Use Packaging To Delight Your Customers.
Sell through Amazon Handmade
Many of the handmade categories on Amazon sell very well and go for a reasonable price. The Amazon fees are much higher than Etsy or Folksy, but Amazon already commands 50 per cent of first-time product searches on the ENTIRE INTERNET.
Etsy is the first place people go to when they want something handmade, as on April 2017 Etsy have over 25 million active shoppers, so you need to weigh the pro’s and con’s of each platform to decide which is suitable your products. You can always sell on both for maximum products.
If you are genuinely interested in making the most amount of money possible with your handmade products, open a Shopify Store. Show your buyers that you are willing to invest in yourself.
How To Price Your Handmade Products:
Where to sell handmade items locally
One of the first ideas to make money is to start selling your crafts at consignment shops.
It’s important to note that Second Hand Shops/Thrift Shops are different from Consignment shops.
“In consignment shops, it is usually understood that the consignee (the seller) pays the consignor (the person who owns the item) a portion of the proceeds from the sale. Payment is not made until and unless the item sells.” – Wikipedia
A consignment store can be a perfect place to break out into the business of selling your crafts. Since the store owners are not usually risking any of their own money for you to sell your products, you can almost always have a chance to sell your handmade items. The downside of selling through consignment shops is that the fees are usually pretty steep. Some will take a third of what you make plus a monthly fee.
You could sell your crafts through museum shops.
Usually, the people who work in museum shops are volunteers, which makes them easy to approach. They will be accommodating in letting you know the price point of their products to ensure you can sell your products. Confirmation is required by upper management before you sell your products there as volunteers wouldn’t have the right to accept your products to sell on your behalf, but they can be excellent middlemen.
A downside to selling here, though, is that business in museum shops is usually very slow – meaning you may not make very much money while selling there.
Sell at craft shows near you
Selling at craft shows means that you can earn a lot of money in just a week. With a craft show, you are completely in charge of your products. That’s excellent news for you because means you are in charge of setting prices and the display of your products. You may make significant amounts of money while selling there, but good craft shows almost always have an entry fee of a few hundred pounds or dollars.
To make the most amount of money possible at craft shows and trade fairs, do a little research about how to read body language, meaning you will learn when it’s appropriate to engage with someone and make sure you aren’t annoying them.
If you are in the United States, you might want to get sign up to this awesome community; it’s all about Fairs & Festivals, a vendor calendar and an eBook is available.
Set up a table at trade shows
Selling at places like this will allow you to make a year’s worth of money in just a couple days.
Unfortunately, like craft fairs, trade shows can be quite expensive to enter if you are only starting out. If you have investment ‘seed’ money, then it could be well worth it.
Make sure that you also research the best ways to set up a table at a craft fair or trade show. I highly recommend this rather excellent book by Torie Jayne.
Get a stall at a local artisan market
Similar to craft and trade shows, local artisan markets accept a fee which means that you have a reserved spot in their weekend market every weekend in a year. Contracts need to be signed, and a timeline must be agreed upon. But the money you earn can be great.
Related: 5 Legit Ways To Earn Extra Money This Weekend
You need to have someone at your stall at all times during that period. So it can be difficult if you get sick. You will need to find someone to cover your booth, or you could face a fine, or worse, lose your stall.
One of the final ideas to make money offline is to sell from your home
A little like a Tupperware lady of days gone by except you are selling your own products. Even after all you’ve invested in advertising, you can still make your money back fairly quickly depending on the product.
For example, if you sell handmade crochet hooks like the unicorn one that I got for my birthday, or you just wrap crochet hooks with clay and make them look beautiful, you could host a crochet party.
Hosting a party would give you the opportunity to allow people to choose a hook and use it and then sell it! If the party attendee decides to purchase ensure you have one similar that you can sell that is brand new.
Claire
Wow, Claire! Nice tips! I feel like I would go for online sales rather than setting up a crafts shop or looking for artisans!
Hey Owen! Yeah me too but I’m lucky that I live in the city with super fast broadband. If I was in the middle of the countryside (at my parents house) the internet connection is awful, so setting up an online store and uploading photographs etc takes about 4x as long. So I can see why people would consider offline options ^_^
Thanks for such a great post Claire! I’m considering setting up an online shop, and have been thinking setting it up as part of my website/blog would be the best way to go as I want to also offer online classes. My only concern is traffic generation, where I thought Etsy might win. But now you have me thinking it might not be any better!
Hey Catherine! There’s nothing to say that you can’t use Etsy as well as other places. And I would recommend using Teachable for course creation 🙂 it seems to be the easiest platform I’ve experienced so far.
What a jam-packed post Claire! I love it that you share your extended knowledge so freely! I can definitely recommend Claire’s Craft Bloggers Handbook. It is a must for any new blogger but it includes enough for the seasoned bloggers too.
Hi Amanda! Thank you so much 🙂 I’ve created some creatives for affiliate promotion and will be creating a page for that this evening. Will send an email on Facebook and a regular email with the link xo
Great post, packed with helpful tips. Thanks for sharing this at the Inspiration Spotlight party. See you again soon. Pinned & sharing
so many great ways to make money selling crafts. I have friends that do this a lot and help suplement their incomes
thanks for sharing your ideas
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